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THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 



THE FEAST 
OF ST FRIEND 

A CHRISTMAS BOOK 



BY 

ARNOLD BENNETT 

Author of 'The Old Wives' Tale" 
"Buried Ali've" Etc.. Etc. 



Keiw VotK^ 

GEORGE H.DORAN 

COMPANY 



Cry^ 



7K ^^^^ 

tic Ph- 



Copyright, 1911, 
By George H. Doran Company 



SCI.A2U7843 ^ 

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CONTENTS: 



Chap. Page 

I. The Fact 1 

II. The Reason 13 

III. The Solstice and Good- 
will 25 

IV. The Appositeness of 

Christmas 37 

V. Defence of Feasting 49 

VI. To Revitalize the Fes- 
tival 61 

VII. The Gift of Oneself 73 

VIII. The Feast of St. Feiend 85 

IX. The Reaction 97 

X. On the Last Day of the 

Yeae 109 



CHAPTER 
ONE 

THE FACT 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 



ONE 

THE FACT 

SOMETHING has happened to 
Christmas, or to our hearts ; or to 
both. In order to be convinced of this 
it is only necessary to compare the 
present with the past. In the old days 
of not so long ago the festival began to 
excite us in November. For weeks the 
house rustled with charming and thrill- 
ing secrets, and with the furtive noises 
of paper parcels being wrapped and 
unwrapped; the house was a whisper- 
ing gallery. The tension of expect- 
ancy increased to such a point that 
there was a positive danger of the cord 
snapping before it ought to snap. On 
[1] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

the Eve we went to bed with no hope of 
settled sleep. We laiew that we should 
be wakened and kept awake by the 
waits singing in the cold; and we were 
glad to be kept awake so. On the su- 
preme day we came downstairs hiding 
delicious yawns, and cordially pretend- 
ing that we had never been more fit. 
The day was different from other days ; 
it had a unique romantic quality, tonic, 
curative of all ills. On that day even 
the tooth-ache vanished, retiring far in- 
to the wilderness with the spiteful 
word, the venomous thought, and the 
unlovely gesture. We sang with gusto 
"Christians awake, salute the happy 
morn." We did salute the happy morn. 
And when all the parcels were defi- 
nitely unpacked, and the secrets of all 
hearts disclosed, we spent the rest of 
the happy morn in waiting, candidly 

[21 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

greedy, for the first of the great meals. 
And then we ate, and we drank, and 
we ate again ; with no thought of nutri- 
tion, nor of reasonableness, nor of the 
morrow, nor of dyspepsia. We ate and 
drank without fear and without shame, 
in the sheer, abandoned ecstasy of cele- 
bration. And by means of motley 
paper headgear, fit only for a carnival, 
we disguised ourselves in the most ab- 
surd fashions, and yet did not make 
ourselves seriously ridiculous; for ridi- 
cule is in the vision, not in what is seen. 
And we danced and sang and larked, 
until we could no more. And finally 
we chanted a song of ceremony, and 
separated; ending the day as we had 
commenced it, with salvoes of good 
wishes. And the next morning we 
were indisposed and enfeebled; and we 
did not care; we suffered gladly; we 

[3] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

had our pain's worth, and more. This 
was the past. 

* * * Hf 

Even today the spirit and rites of 
ancient Christmas are kept up, more 
or less in their full rigour and splen- 
dour, by a race of beings that is scat- 
tered over the whole earth. This race, 
mysterious, masterful, conservative, 
imaginative, passionately sincere, ar- 
riving from we know not where, dis- 
solving before our eyes we know not 
how, has its way in spite of us. I mean 
the children. By virtue of the chil- 
dren's faith, the reindeer are still 
tramping the sky, and Christmas Day 
is still something above and beyond a 
day of the week; it is a day out of the 
week. We have to sit and pretend; 
and with disillusion in our souls we do 
pretend. At Christmas, it is not the 

[4] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

children who make-believe; it is our- 
selves. Who does not remember the 
first inkling of a suspicion that Christ- 
mas Day was after all a day rather 
like any other day? In the house of 
my memories, it was the immemorial 
duty of my brother on Christmas 
morning, before anything else what- 
ever happened, to sit down to the organ 
and perform "Christians Awake" with 
all possible stops drawn. He had to do 
it. Tradition, and the will that ema- 
nated from the best bedroom, combined 
to force him to do it. One Christmas 
morning, as he was preparing the stops, 
he glanced aside at me with a supercili- 
ous curl of the lips, and the curl of my 
lips silently answered. It was as if 
he had said: "I condescend to this," and 
as if I had said: "So do I." 

Such a moment comes to mosj of us 

[5] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

of this generation. And thencefor- 
ward the change in us is extraordinarily- 
rapid. The next thing we know is that 
the institution of waits is a rather an- 
noying survival which at once deprives 
us of sleep and takes money out of our 
pockets. And then Christmas is glut- 
tony and indigestion and expensive- 
ness and quarter-day, and Christmas 
cards are a tax and a nuisance, and 
present-giving is a heavier tax and a 
nuisance. And we feel self-conscious 
and foolish as we sing "Auld Lang 
Syne." And what a blessing it will 
be when the "festivities" (as they are 
misleadingly called) are over, and we 
can settle down into commonsense 
again ! 

4c ♦ 4: * 

I do not mean that our hearts are 
black with despair on Christmas Day. 

[6] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

I do not mean that we do not enjoy 
ourselves on Christmas Day. There 
is no doubt that, with the inspiriting 
help of the mysterious race, and by the 
force of tradition, and by our own gift 
of pretending, we do still very much 
enjoy ourselves on Christmas Day. 
What I mean to insinuate, and to as- 
sert, is that beneath this enjoyment is 
the disconcerting and distressing con- 
viction of unreality, of non-significance, 
of exaggerated and even false senti- 
ment. What I mean is that we have to 
brace and force ourselves up to the en- 
joyment of Christmas. We have to 
induce deliberately the "Christmas feel- 
ing." We have to remind ourselves 
that "it will never do" to let the hearti- 
ness of Christmas be impaired. The 
peculiarity of our attitude towards 
Christmas, which at worst is a vaca- 

[7] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

tion, may be clearly seen by contrasting 
it with our attitude towards another 
vacation — the summer holiday. We do 
not have to brace and force ourselves 
up to the enjoyment of the summer 
holiday. We experience no difficulty 
in inducing the holiday feeling. There 
is no fear of the institution of the sum- 
mer holiday losing its heartiness. Nor 
do we need the example of children to 
aid us in savouring the August "festivi- 
ties." 

« 4: * 3K 

If any person here breaks in with 
the statement that I am deceived and 
the truth is not in me, and that Christ- 
mas stands just where it did in the 
esteem of all right-minded people, and 
that he who casts a doubt on the hearti- 
ness of Christmas is not right-minded, 
let that person read no more. This 

[8] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

book is not written for him. And if 
any other person, kindlier, condescend- 
ingly protests that there is nothing 
wrong with Christmas except my ad- 
vancing age, let that person read no 
more. This book is not written for 
him, either. It is written for persons 
who can look facts cheerfully in the 
face. That Christmas has lost some of 
its magic is a fact that the common 
sense of the western hemisphere will 
not dispute. To blink the fact is in- 
fantile. To confront it, to try to under- 
stand it, to reckon with it, and to 
obviate any evil that may attach to it — 
this course alone is meet for an hon- 
est man. 



[9] 



CHAPTER 
TWO 

THE REASON 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 



TWO 

THE REASON 

rthe decadence of Christmas were 
a purely subjective phenomenon, 
confined to the breasts of those of 
us who have ceased to be children 
then it follows that Christmas has 
always been decadent, because peo- 
ple have always been ceasing to 
be children. It follows also that the 
festival was originally got up by dis- 
illusioned adults, for the benefit of the 
children. Which is totally absurd. 
Adults have never yet invented any in- 
stitution, festival or diversion specially 
for the benefit of children. The egoism 
of adults makes such an effort impos- 

[18] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

sible, and the ingenuity and pliancy of 
children make it unnecessary. The 
pantomime, for example, which is now 
pre-eminently a diversion for children, 
was created by adults for the amusement 
of adults. Children have merely ac- 
cepted it and appropriated it. Chil-' 
dren, being helpless, are of course fatal- 
ists and imitators. They take what 
comes, and they do the best they can 
with it. And when they have made 
something their own that was adult, 
they stick to it like leeches. 

They are terrific Tories, are children ; 
they are even reactionary! They 
powerfully object to changes. What 
they most admire in a pantomime is 
the oldest part of it, the only true pan- 
tomime — the harlequinade! Hence the 
very nature of children is a proof that 
what Christmas is now to them, it was 

[14] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

in the past to their elders. If they now 
feel and exhibit faith and enthusiasm 
in the practice of the festival, be sure 
that, at one time, adults felt and ex- 
hibited the same faith and enthusiasm 
— yea, and more! For in neither faith 
nor enthusiasm can a child compete 
with a convinced adult. No child could 
believe in anything as passionately as 
the modern millionaire believes in 
money, or as the modern social re- 
former believes in the virtue of Acts 
of Parliament. 

Another and a crowning proof that 
Christmas has been diminished in our 
hearts lies in the fiery lyrical splendour 
of the old Christmas hymns. Those 
hymns were not written by people who 
made-believe at Christmas for the 
pleasure of youngsters. They were 

[15] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

written by devotees. And this age 
could not have produced them. 
* * * * 

No I The decay of the old Christmas 
spirit among adults is undeniable, and 
its cause is fairly plain. It is due to the 
labours of a set of idealists — men who 
cared not for money, nor for glory, nor 
for anything except their ideal. Their 
ideal was to find out the truth concern- 
ing nature and concerning human his- 
tory; and they sacrificed all — they sac- 
rificed the peace of mind of whole gen- 
erations — to the pleasure of slaking 
their ardour for truth. For them the 
most important thing in the world was 
the satisfaction of their curiosity. They 
would leave naught alone; and they 
scorned consequences. Useless to cry 
to them: "That is holy. Touch it not!" 
I mean the great philosophers and men 

[16] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

of science — especially the geologists — 
of the nineteenth century. I mean 
such utterly pure-minded men as Lyell, 
Spencer, Darwin and Huxley. They 
inaugurated the mighty age of doubt 
and scepticism. They made it impos- 
sible to believe all manner of things 
which before them none had questioned. 
The movement spread until uneasiness 
was everywhere in the realm of thought, 
and people walked about therein fear- 
somely, as in a land subject to earth- 
quakes. It was as if people had said: 
"We don't know what will topple next. 
Let's raze everything to the ground, 
and then we shall feel safer." And 
there came a moment after which no- 
body could ever look at a picture of the 
Nativity in the old way. Pictures of 
the Nativity were admired perhaps as 
much as ever, but for the exquisite 

[17] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

beauty of their naivete, the charm of 
their old-world simplicity, not as artis- 
tic renderings of fact. 

4: 4c * * 

An age of scepticism has its faults, 
like any other age, though certain per- 
sons have pretended the contrary. 
Having been compelled to abandon its 
belief in various statements of alleged 
fact, it lumps principles and ideals 
with alleged facts, and hastily decides 
not to believe in anything at all. It 
gives up faith, it despises faith, in spite 
of the warning of its greatest philos- 
ophers, including Herbert Spencer, 
that faith of some sort is necessary to a 
satisfactory existence in a universe full 
of problems which science admits it can 
never solve. None were humbler than 
the foremost scientists about the nar- 
rowness of the field of knowledge, as 

[18] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

compared with the immeasurability of 
the field of faith. But the warning has 
been ignored, as warnings nearly al- 
ways are. Faith is at a discount. And 
the qualities which go with faith are at 
a discount; such as enthusiasm, spon- 
taneity, ebullition, lyricism, and self- 
expression in general. Sentimentality 
is held in such horror that people are 
afraid even of sentiment. Their secret 
cry is: "Give us something in which 
we can believe." 

* * * * 

They forget, in their confusion, that 
the great principles, spiritual and 
moral, remain absolutely intact. They 
forget that, after all the shattering dis- 
coveries of science and conclusions of 
philosophy, mankind has still to live 
with dignity amid hostile nature, and 
in the presence of an unknowable 

[19] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

power and that mankind can only suc- 
ceed in this tremendous feat by the ex- 
ercise of faith and of that mutual good- 
will which is based in sincerity and 
charity. They forget that, while facts 
are nothing, these principles are every- 
thing. And so, at that epoch of the 
year which nature herself has ordained 
for the formal recognition of the situa- 
tion of mankind in the universe and of 
its resulting duties to itself and to the 
Unknown — at that epoch, they bewail, 
sadly or impatiently or cynically: "Oh! 
The bottom has been knocked out of 
Christmas I" 

4: !(( 4: 4e 

But the bottom has not been knocked 
out of Christmas. And people know it. 
Somewhere, in the most central and 
mysterious fastness of their hearts, they 
know it. If they were not, in spite of 
themselves, convinced of it, why 

[20] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

should they be so pathetically anxious 
to keep alive in themselves, and to 
foster in their children, the Christmas 
spirit? Obviously, a profound instinct 
is for ever reminding them that, with- 
out the Christmas spirit, they are lost. 
The forms of faith change, but the 
spirit of faith, which is the Christmas 
spirit, is immortal amid its endless 
vicissitudes. At a crisis of change, faith 
is weakened for the majority; for the 
majority it may seem to be dead. It is 
conserved, however, in the hearts of the 
few supremely great and in the hearts 
of the simple. The supremely great 
are hidden from the majority; but the 
simple are seen of all men, and them 
we encourage, often without knowing 
why, to be the depositaries of that 
which we cannot ourselves guard, but 
which we dimly feel to be indispensable 
to our safety. 

[21] 



CHAPTER 
THREE 

THE SOLSTICE 
AND GOOD WILL 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 



THREE 

THE SOLSTICE AND GOOD WILL 

IN order to see that there is under- 
lying Christmas an idea of faith 
which will at any rate last as long as 
the planet lasts, it is only necessary to 
ask and answer the question: "Why 
was the Christmas feast fixed for the 
twenty-fifth of December?" For it is 
absolutely certain, and admitted by 
everybody of knowledge, that Christ 
was not born on the twenty-fifth of 
December. Those disturbing impas- 
sioned inquirers after truth, who will 
not leave us peaceful in our ignorance, 
have settled that for us, by pointing 
out, among other things, that the 

[25] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

twenty-fifth of December falls in the 
very midst of the Palestine rainy sea- 
son, and that, therefore, shepherds were 
assuredly not on that date watching 
their flocks by night. 

* * * ♦ 

Christians were not, at first, united 
in the celebration of Christmas. Some 
kept Christmas in January, others in 
April, others in May. It was a pre- 
Christian force which drove them all 
into agreement upon the twenty-fifth 
of December. Just as they wisely took 
the Christmas tree from the Roman 
Saturnalia, so they took the date of 
their festival from the universal pre- 
Christian festival of the winter solstice. 
Yule, when mankind celebrated the 
triumph of the sun over the powers of 
darkness, when the night begins to de- 
grease and the day to increase, when 

[26] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

the year turns, and hope is born again 
because the worst is over. No more 
suitably symbolic moment could have 
been chosen for a festival of faith, good- 
will and joy. And the appositeness of 
the moment is just as perfect in this era 
of electric light and central heating, as 
it was in the era of Virgil, who, by the 
way, described a Christmas tree. We 
shall say this year, with exactly the 
same accents of relief and hope as our 
pagan ancestors used, and as the 
woaded savage used: "The days will 
begin to lengthen now!" For, while 
we often falsely fancy that we have 
subjugated nature to our service, the 
fact is that we are as irremediably as 
ever at the mercy of nature. 

Indeed, the attitude of us moderns 
towards the forces by which our exist- 

[27] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

ence is governed ought to be, and prob- 
ably is, more reverent and awe-struck 
than that of the earlier world. The dis- 
coveries of science have at once quick- 
ened our imagination and compelled 
us to admit that what we know is the 
merest trifle. The pagan in his ignor- 
ance explained everything. Our knowl- 
edge has only deepened the mystery, 
and all that we shall learn will but 
deepen it further. We can explain the 
solstice. We are aware with absolute 
certitude that the solstice and the 
equinox and the varying phenomena 
of the seasons are due to the fact that 
the plane of the equator is tilted at a 
slight angle to the plane of the ecliptic. 
When we put on the first overcoat in 
autumn, and when we give orders to let 
the furnace out in spring, we know 
that we are arranging our lives in ac- 

[28] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

cordance with that angle. And we are 
quite duly proud of our knowledge. 
And much good does our knowledge 

do us! 

* * * * 

Well, it does do us some good, and 
in a spiritual way, too! For nobody 
can even toy with astronomy without 
picturing to himself, more clearly and 
startlingly than would be otherwise 
possible, a revolving globe that whizzes 
through elemental space around a ball 
of fire: which, in turn, is rushing with 
all its satellites at an inconceivable 
speed from nowhere to nowhere; and 
to the surface of the revolving, whiz- 
zing globe a multitude of living things 
desperately clinging, and these living 
things, in the midst of cataclysmic dan- 
ger, and between the twin enigmas of 
birth and death, quarrelling and hating 
and calling themselves kings and 

[29] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

queens and millionaires and beautiful 
women and aristocrats and geniuses 
and lackeys and superior persons! 
Perhaps the highest value of astron- 
omy is that it renders more vivid the 
ironical significance of such a vision, 
and thus brings home to us the truth 
that in spite of all the differences which 
we have invented, mankind is a fellow- 
ship of brothers, overshadowed by in- 
soluble and fearful mysteries, and de- 
pendent upon mutual goodwill and 
trust for the happiness it may hope to 
achieve. * * * Let us remember that 
Christmas is, among other things, the 
winter solstice, and that the bottom 
has not yet been knocked out of the 
winter solstice, nor is likely to be in the 
immediate future! 

It is a curious fact that the one faith 
which really does flourish and wax in 

[30] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

these days should be faith in the idea of 
social justice. For social justice sim- 
ply means the putting into practice of 
goodwill and the recognition of the 
brotherhood of mankind. Formerly, 
people were enthusiastic and altruistic 
for a theological idea, for a national 
idea, for a political idea. You could 
see men on the rack for the sake of a 
dogma; you could see men of a great 
nation fitting out regiments and ruin- 
ing themselves and going forth to save 
a small nation from destruction. You 
could see men giving their lives to the 
aggrandisement of an empire. And 
the men who did these things had the 
best brains and the quickest wits and 
the warmest hearts of their time. But 
today, whenever you meet a first-class 
man who is both enthusiastic and al- 
truistic, you may be sure that his pet 

[31] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

scheme is neither theological, military 

nor political; you may be sure that he 

has got into his head the notion that 

some class of persons somewhere are 

not being treated fairly, are not being 

treated with fraternal goodwill, and 

that he is determined to put the matter 

right, or perish. 

* * * * 

In England, nearly all the most in- 
teresting people are social reformers: 
and the only circles of society in which 
you are not bored, in which there is real 
conversation, are the circles of social 
reform. These people alone have an 
abounding and convincing faith. Their 
faith has, for example, convinced many 
of the best literary artists of the day, 
with the result that a large proportion 
of the best modern imaginative liter- 
ature has been inspired by the dream of 

[32] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

social justice. Take away that idea 
from the works of H. G. Wells, John 
Galsworthy and George Bernard 
Shaw, and there would be exactly noth- 
ing left. Despite any appearance to the 
contrary, therefore, the idea of univer- 
sal goodwill is really alive upon the 
continents of this planet: more so, in- 
deed, than any other idea — for the vi- 
tality of an idea depends far less on 
the numbers of people who hold it than 
on the quality of the heart and brain of 
the people who hold it. Whether the 
growth of the idea is due to the spirit- 
ual awe and humility which are the 
consequence of increased scientific 
knowledge, I cannot say, and I do not 
seriously care. 



133] 



CHAPTER 
FOUR 

THE APPOSITENESS 
OF CHRISTMAS 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 



FOUR 

THE APPOSITENESS OF CHRISTMAS 

YES," you say, "I am quite at one 
with you as to the immense 
importance of goodwill in social exist- 
ence, and I have the same faith in it as 
you have. But why a festival? Why 
eating and drinking and ceremonies? 
Surely one can have faith without festi- 
vals?" 

* :(( * 9): 

The answer is that one cannot; or at 
least that in practice, one never does. 
A disinclination for festivals, a morbid 
self-conscious fear of letting oneself go, 
is a sure sign of lack of faith. If you 
have not enough enthusiasm for the 

f37] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

cult of goodwill to make you positively 
desire to celebrate the cult, then your 
faith is insufficient and needs fostering 
by study and meditation. Why, if you 
decide to found a sailing-club up your 
creek, your very first thought is to sig- 
nalise your faith in the sailing of those 
particular waters by a dinner and a 
jollity, and you take care that the 
event shall be an annual one! * * * 
You have faith in your wife, and in 
your affection for her. Surely you 
don't need a festival to remind you of 
that faith, you so superior to human 
weaknesses? But you do! You insist 
on having it. And, if the festival did 
not happen, you would feel gloomy 
and discouraged. A birthday is a de- 
vice for recalling to you in a formal 
and impressive manner that a certain 
person still lives and is in need of good- 

[38] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

will. It is a device which experience 

has proved to be both valuable and 

necessary. 

* * * * 

Real faith effervesces ; it shoots forth 
in every direction; it communicates it- 
self. And the inevitable result is a fes- 
tival. The festival is anticipated with 
pleasure, and it is remembered with 
pleasure. And thus it reacts stimula- 
tingly on that which gave it birth, as the 
vitality of children reacts stimulatingly 
on the vitality of parents. It provides 
a concrete symbol of that which is in- 
visible and intangible, and mankind is 
not yet so advanced in the path of 
spiritual perfection that we can afford 
to dispense with concrete symbols. 
Now, if we maintain festivals and 
formalities for the healthy continuance 
and honour of a pastime or of a per- 

[39] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

sonal affection, shall we not maintain 
a festival — and a mighty one — in be- 
half of a faith which makes the corpor- 
ate human existence bearable amid the 
menaces and mysteries that for ever 
threaten it, — the faith of universal 
goodwill and mutual confidence? 
* * * * 

If then, there is to be a festival, why 
should it not be the festival of Christ- 
mas? It can, indeed, be no other. 
Christmas is most plainly indicated. It 
is dignified and made precious by tra- 
ditions which go back much further 
than the Christian era; and it has this 
tremendous advantage — it exists! In 
spite of our declining faith, it has been 
preserved to us, and here it is, ready to 
hand. Not merely does it fall at the 
point which uncounted generations 
have agreed to consider as the turn of 

[40] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

the solar year and as the rebirth of 
hope! It falls also immediately before 
the end of the calendar year, and thus 
prepares us for a fresh beginning that 
shall put the old to shame. It could 
not be better timed. Further, its tra- 
ditional spirit of peace and goodwill is 
the very spirit which we desire to fos- 
ter. And finally its customs — or at 
any rate, its main customs — are well 
designed to symbolize that spirit. If 
we have allowed the despatch of Christ- 
mas cards to degenerate into naught 
but a tedious shuffling of paste-boards 
and overwork of post-office officials, 
the fault is not in the custom but in 
ourselves. The custom is a most strik- 
ing one — so long as we have sufficient 
imagination to remember vividly that 
we are all in the same boat — I mean, 
on the same planet — and clinging des- 

[41] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

perately to the flying ball, and depend- 
ent for daily happiness on one 
another's good will! A Christmas card 
sent by one human being to another 
human being is more than a piece of 
coloured stationery sent by one log of 
wood to another log of wood: it is an 
inspiring and reassuring message of 
high value. The mischief is that so 
many self-styled human beings are 
just logs of wood, rather stylishly 
dressed. 

^ Dc * % 

And then the custom of present-giv- 
ing! What better and more convinc- 
ing proof of sympathy than a gift? 
The gift is one of these obvious con- 
trivances — like the wheel or the lever — 
which smooth and simplify earthly life, 
and the charm of whose utility no ob- 
viousness can stale. But of course any 

142] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

contrivance can be rendered futile by 
clumsiness or negligence. There is a 
sort of Christmas giver who says pet- 
tishly: "Oh! I don't know what to give 
to So-and-So this Christmas! What a 
bother! I shall write and tell her to 
choose something herself, and send the 
bill to me!" And he writes. And though 
he does not suspect it, what he really 
writes, and what So-and-So reads, is 
this: "Dear So-and-So. It is nothing 
to me that you and I are alive together 
on this planet, and in various ways 
mutually dependent. But I am bound 
by custom to give you a present. I do 
not, however, take sufficient interest in 
your life to know what object it would 
give you pleasure to possess ; and I do 
not want to be put to the trouble of 
finding out, nor of obtaining the object 
and transmitting it to you. Will you, 

[43] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

therefore, buy something for yourself 
and send the bill to me. Of course, a 
sense of social decency will prevent you 
from spending more than a small sum, 
and I shall be spared all exertion be- 
yond signing a cheque. Yours insin- 
cerely and loggishly * * *." So man- 
aged, the contrivance of present-giving 
becomes positively sinister in its work- 
ing. But managed with the sympa- 
thetic imagination which is infallibly 
produced by real faith in goodwill, its 
efficacy may approach the miraculous. 

The Christmas ceremony of good- 
wishing by word of mouth has never 
been in any danger of falling into in- 
sincerity. Such is the power of tradi- 
tion and virtue of a festival, and such 
the instinctive brotherliness of men, 
that on this day the mere sight of an 

[44] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

acquaintance will soften the voice and 
warm the heart of the most superior 
sceptic and curmudgeon that the age 
of disillusion has produced. In spite 
of himself, faith flickers up in him 
again, be it only for a moment. And, 
during that moment, he is almost like 
those whose bright faith the age has 
never tarnished, like the great and like 
the simple, to whom it is quite un- 
necessary to offer a defence and ex- 
planation of Christmas or to suggest 
the basis of a new faith therein. 



[45] 



CHAPTER 
FIVE 

DEFENCE OF FEASTING 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 



FIVE 

DEFENCE OF FEASTING 

AND now I can hear the superior 
1^ sceptic disdainfully questioning: 
"Yes, but what about the orgy of 
Christmas? What about all the eating 
and drinking?" To which I can only 
answer that faith causes effervescence, 
expansion, joy, and that joy has al- 
ways, for excellent reasons, been con- 
nected with feasting. The very words 
'feast' and 'festival' are etymologically 
inseparable. The meal is the most 
regular and the least dispensable of 
daily events; it happens also to be an 
event which is in itself almost invari- 
ably a source of pleasure, or, at worst, 

[49] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

of satisfaction: and it will continue to 
have this precious quality so long as 
our souls are encased in bodies. What 
could be more natural, therefore, than 
that it should be employed, with due 
enlargement and ornamentation, as the 
kernel of the festival? What more 
logical than that the meal should be 
elevated into a feast? 

"But," exclaims the superior sceptic, 
"this idea involves the idea of excess!" 
What if it does? I would not deny it! 
Assuredly, a feast means more than 
enough, and more than enough means 
excess. It is only because a feast 
means excess that it assists in 
the bringing about of expansion 
and joy. Such is human nature, and 
it is the case of human nature that 
we are discussing. Of course, excess 
usually exacts its toll, within twenty- 

[50] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

four hours, especially from the weak. 
But the benefit is worth its price. The 
body pays no more than the debt which 
the soul has incurred. An occasional 
change of habit is essential to well-be- 
ing, and every change of habit results 
in temporary derangement and incon- 
venience. 

Do not misunderstand me. Do not 
push my notion of excess to extremes. 
When I defend the excess inevitably 
incident to a feast, I am not seeking to 
prove that a man in celebrating Christ- 
mas is entitled to drink champagne in 
a public restaurant until he becomes an 
object of scorn and disgust to the wait- 
ers who have travelled from Switzer- 
land in order to receive his tips. Much 
less should I be prepared to justify him 
if, in his own home, he sank lower than 
the hog. Nor would I sympathetically 

[51] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

carry him to bed. There is such a 
thing as excess in moderation and dig- 
nity. Every wise man has practised 
this. And he who has not practised it 
is a fool, and deserves even a harder 
name. He ought indeed to inhabit a 
planet himself, for all his faith in hu- 
manity will be exhausted in believing 
in himself. * * * So much for the 
feast ! 

>): 9it 3|c 4: 

But the accompaniments of the feast 
are also excessive. For example, you 
make a tug-of-war with your neigh- 
bour at table, and the rope is a fragile 
packet of tinselled paper, which breaks 
with a report like a pistol. You open 
your half of the packet, and discover 
some doggerel verse which you read 
aloud, and also a perfectly idiotic col- 
oured cap, which you put on your head 

[53] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

to the end of looking foolish. And this 
ceremony is continued until the whole 
table is surrounded by preposterous 
headgear, and doggerel verse is lying 
by every plate. Surely no man in his 
senses, no woman in hers, would, etc., 
etc. * * * ! But one of the spiritual 
advantages of feasting is that it ex- 
pands you beyond your common sense. 
One excess induces another, and a finer 
one. This acceptance of the ridiculous 
is good for you. It is particularly good 
for an Anglo-Saxon, who is so self- 
contained and self-controlled that 
his soul might stiffen as the un- 
used limb of an Indian fakir stif- 
fens, were it not for periodical excite- 
ments like that of the Christmas feast. 
Everybody has experienced the self- 
conscious reluctance which precedes the 
putting on of the cap, and the relief, 

[53] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

followed by further expansion and 
ecstasy, which ensues after the putting 
on. Everybody who has put on a cap 
is aware that it is a beneficial thing to 
put on a cap. Quite apart from the 
fact that the mysterious and fanciful 
race of children are thereby placated 
and appeased, the soul of the capped 
one is purified by this charming excess. 

9|c 3|c * 4: 

And the Tree! What an excess of 
the fantastic to pretend that all those 
glittering balls, those coloured candles 
and those variegated parcels are the 
blossoms of the absurd tree ! How ex- 
cessively grotesque to tie all those par- 
cels to the branches, in order to take 
them off again! Surely, something less 
mediaeval, more ingenious, more mod- 
ern than this could be devised — if sym- 
bolism is to be indulged in at all ! Can 

[54] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

you devise it, O sceptical one, revelling 
in disillusion? Can you invent a sym- 
bol more natural and graceful than the 
symbol of the Tree? Perhaps you 
would have a shop-counter, and shelves 
behind it, so as to instil early into the 
youthful mind that this is a planet of 
commerce! Perhaps you would abolish 
the doggerel of crackers, and substitute 
therefor extracts from the Autobio- 
graphy of Benjamin Franklin! Per- 
haps you would exchange the caps for 
blazonry embroidered with chemical 
formula, your object being the ad- 
vancement of science! Perhaps you 
would do away with the orgiastic eat- 
ing and drinking, and arrange for a 
formal conversation about astronomy 
and the idea of human fraternity, upon 
strictly reasonable rations of shredded 
wheat! You would thus create an 

[55] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

original festival, and eliminate all fear 
of a dyspeptic morrow. You would im- 
prove the mind. And you would 
avoid the ridiculous. But also, in 
avoiding the ridiculous, you would 
tumble into the ridiculous, deeply and 
hopelessly! And think how your very 
original festival would delight the par- 
ticipators, how they would look for- 
ward to it with joy, and back upon it 
with pleasurable regret; how their 
minds would dwell sweetly upon the 
conception of shredded wheat, and how 
their faith would be encouraged and 
strengthened by the intellectuality of 

the formal conversation! 

* * * * 

He who girds at an ancient estab- 
lished festival should reflect upon sun- 
dry obvious truths before he withers 
up the said festival by the sirocco of his 

[56] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

contempt. These truths are as fol- 
lows: — First, a festival, though based 
upon intelligence, is not an affair of the 
intellect, but an affair of the emotions. 
Second, the human soul can only be 
reached through the human body. 
Third, it is impossible to replace an an- 
cient festival by a new one. Robe- 
spierre, amongst others, tried to do so, 
and achieved the absurd. Reformers, 
heralds of new faiths, and rejuvenat- 
ors of old faiths, have always, when 
they succeeded, adopted an ancient fes- 
tival, with all or most of its forms, and 
been content to breathe into it a new 
spirit to replace the old spirit which 
had vanished or was vanishing. Any- 
body who, persuaded that Christmas is 
not what it was, feels that a festival 
must nevertheless be preserved, will do 
well to follow this example. To be 

[57] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

content with the old forms and to vital- 
ize them: that is the problem. Solve 
it, and the forms will soon begin to 
adapt themselves to the process of vital- 
ization. All history is a witness in 
proof. 



[58 



CHAPTER 
SIX 

TO REVITALIZE 
THE FESTIVAL 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 



SIX 

TO REVITALIZE THE FESTIVAL 

IT being agreed, then, that the 
Christmas festival has lost a great 
deal of its old vitality, and that, to many 
people, it is a source of tedium and the 
cause of insincerity; and it being 
further agreed that the difficulty can- 
not be got over by simply abolishing 
the festival, as no one really wants it to 
be abolished; the question remains — 
what should be done to vitalize it? The 
former spirit of faith, the spirit which 
made the great Christmas of the golden 
days, has been weakened; but one ele- 
ment of it — that which is founded on 
the conviction that goodwill among 

[61] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

men is a prime necessity of reasonable 
living — survives with a certain vigom*, 
though even it has not escaped the gen- 
eral scepticism of the age. This ele- 
ment unites in agreement all the pug- 
nacious sectaries who join battle over 
the other elements of the former faith. 
This element has no enemies. None 
will deny its lasting virtue. Obviously, 
therefore, the right course is to concen- 
trate on the cultivation of goodwill. 
If goodwill can be consciously in- 
creased, the festival of Christmas will 
cease to be perfunctory. It will ac- 
quire a fresh and more genuine signifi- 
cance, which, however, will not in any 
way inconvenience those who have 
never let go of the older significance. 
No tradition will be overthrown, no 
shock administered, and nobody will be 
able to croak about iconoclasm and 

[63] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

new-fangled notions and the sudden 
end of the world, and so on. 

The fancy of some people will at 
once run to the formation of a grand 
international Society for the revivify- 
ing of Christmas by the cultivation of 
goodwill, with branches in all the chief 
cities of Europe and America, and 
headquarters — of course at the Hague ; 
and committees and subcommittees, 
and presidents and vice-presidents; 
and honorary secretaries and secretar- 
ies paid; and quarterly and annual 
meetings, and triennial congresses! 
And a literary organ or two! And a 
badge — naturally a badge, designed by 
a famous artist in harmonious tints! 

SfS «(£ >fC af* 

But my fancy does not run at all in 
this direction. I am convinced that we 

[63] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

have already far too many societies for 
the furtherance of our ends. To my 
mind, most societies with a moral aim 
are merely clumsy machines for doing 
simple jobs with the maximum of fric- 
tion, expense and inefficiency. I should 
define the majority of these societies as 
a group of persons each of whom ex- 
pects the others to do something very 
wonderful. Why create a society in 
order to help you to perform some act 
which nobody can perform but your- 
self? No society can cultivate goodwill 
in you. You might as well create a so- 
ciety for shaving or for saying your 
prayers. And further, goodwill is far 
less a process of performing acts than 
a process of thinking thoughts. To 
think, is it necessary to involve your- 
self in the cog-wheels of a society? 
Moreover, a society means fuss and 

[64] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

shouting: two species of disturbance 
which are both futile and deleterious — 
particularly in an intimate affair of 
morals. 

You can best help the general culti- 
vation of goodwill along by cultivating 
goodwill in your own heart. Until you 
have started the task of personal culti- 
vation, you will probably assume that 
there will be time left over for super- 
intending the cultivation of goodwill in 
other people's hearts. But a very little 
experience ought to show you that this 
is a delusion. You will perceive, if not 
at once, later, that you have bitten off 
just about as much as you can chew. 
And you will appreciate also the wis- 
dom of not advertising your enterprise. 
Why, indeed, should you breathe a 
word to a single soul concerning your 
admirable intentions? Rest assured 

[65] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

that any unusual sprouting of the de- 
sired crop will be instantly noticed by 
the persons interested. 

* * * * 

The next point is: Towards whom 
are you to cultivate goodwill? Natur- 
ally, one would answer: Towards the 
whole of humanity. But the whole of 
humanity, as far as you are concerned, 
amounts to naught but a magnificent 
abstract conception. And it is very 
difficult to cultivate goodwill towards 
a magnificent abstract conception. The 
object of goodwill ought to be clearly 
defined, and very visible to the physi- 
cal eye, especially in the case of people, 
such as us, who are only just beginning 
to give to the cultivation of goodwill, 
perhaps, as much attention as we give 
to our clothes or our tobacco. If a nov- 
ice sets out to embrace the whole of 

[66] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

humanity in his goodwill, he will have 
even less success than a young man en- 
deavouring to fall in love with four sis- 
ters at once; and his daily companions 
— those who see him eat his bacon and 
lace his boots and earn his living — will 
most certainly have a rough time of it. 
* * * No! It will be best for you to 
centre your efforts on quite a small 
group of persons, and let the rest of 
humanity struggle on as well as it can, 
with no more of your goodwill than it 
has hitherto had. 

In choosing the small group of peo- 
ple, it will be unnecessary for you to go 
to Timbuctoo, or into the next street or 
into the next house. And, in this group 
of people you will be wise, while neg- 
lecting no member of the group, to 
specialise on one member. Your wife, 
if you have one, or your husband? Not 

[67] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

necessarily. I was meaning simply that 
one who most frequently annoys you. 
He may be your husband, or she may 
be your wife. These things happen. 
He may be your butler. Or you may 
be his butler. She may be your 
daughter, or he may be your father, and 
you a charming omniscient girl of sev- 
enteen wiser than anybody else. Who- 
ever he or she may be who oftenest in- 
spires you with a feeling of irritated 
superiority, aim at that person in par- 
ticular. 

The frequency of your early failures 
with him or her will show you how pru- 
dent you were not to make an attempt 
on the whole of humanity at once. And 
also you will see that you did well not 
to publish your excellent intentions. 
If nobody is aware of your striving, no- 
body will be aware that you have failed 

[68] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

in striving. Your successes will ap- 
pear effortless, and — most important 
of all — you will be free from the horrid 
curse of self-consciousness. Herein is 
one of the main advantages of not 
wearing a badge. Lastly, you will 
have the satisfaction of feeling that, if 
everybody else is doing as you are, the 
whole of humanity is being attended to 
after all. And the comforting thought 
is that very probably, almost certainly, 
quite a considerable number of people 
are in fact doing as you are; some of 
them — make no doubt — are doing a 
shade better. I now come to the actual 
method of cultivating goodwill. 



[69] 



CHAPTER 
SEVEN 

THE GIFT 
OF ONESELF 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 



SEVEN 

THE GIFT OF ONESELF 

CHILDREN divide their adult ac- 
quaintances into two categories — 
those who sympathise with them in the 
bizarre and trying adventure called life ; 
and those who don't. The second cate- 
gory is much the larger of the two. Very 
many people belong to it who think 
that they belong to the first. They may 
deceive themselves, but they cannot de- 
ceive a child. Although you may 
easily practise upon the credulity of a 
child in matters of fact, you cannot 
cheat his moral and social judgment. 
He will add you up, and he will add 
anybody up, and he will estimate con- 

[73] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

duct, upon principles of his own and in 
a manner terribly impartial. Parents 
have no sterner nor more discerning 
critics than their own children. 

And so you may be polite to a child, 
and pretend to appreciate his point of 
view; but, unless you really do put 
yourself to the trouble of understand- 
ing him, unless you throw yourself, by 
the exercise of imagination, into his 
world, you will not succeed in being his 
friend. To be his friend means an ef- 
fort on your part, it means that you 
must divest yourself of your own men- 
tal habit, and, for the time being, adopt 
his. And no nice phrases, no gifts of 
money, sweets or toys, can take the 
place of this effort, and this sacrifice of 
self. With five minutes of genuine 
surrender to him, you can win more of 
his esteem and gratitude than five hun- 

[74] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

dred pounds would buy. His notion 
of real goodwill is the imaginative 
sharing of his feelings, a convinced 
participation in his pains and pleasures. 
He is well aware that, if you honestly 
do this, you will be on his side. 
* * * * 

Now, adults, of course, are tremen- 
dously clever and accomplished persons 
and children are no match for them; 
but still, with all their talents and om- 
niscience and power, adults seem to 
lack important pieces of knowledge 
which children possess; they seem to 
forget, and to fail to profit by, their 
infantile experience. Else why should 
adults in general be so extraordinarily 
ignorant of the great truth that the se- 
cret of goodwill lies in the sympathetic 
exercise of the imagination? Since 
goodwill is the secret of human happi- 

[75] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

ness, it follows that the secret of good- 
will must be one of the most precious 
aids to sensible living; and yet adults, 
though they once knew it, have gone 
and forgotten it! Children may well 
be excused for concluding that the 
ways of the adult, in their capricious ir- 
rationality, are past finding out. 

To increase your goodwill for a fel- 
low creature, it is necessary to imagine 
that you are he: and nothing else is 
necessary. This feat is not easy; but 
it can be done. Some people have less 
of the divine faculty of imagination 
than others, but nobody is without it, 
and, like all other faculties, it improves 
with use, just as it deteriorates with neg- 
lect. Imagination is a function of the 
brain. In order to cultivate goodwill 
for a person, you must think frequent- 
ly about that person. You must in- 

[76] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

form yourself about all his activities. 
You must be able in your mind's eye to 
follow him hour by hour throughout 
the day, and you must ascertain if he 
sleeps well at night — because this is not 
a trifle. And you must reflect upon his 
existence with the same partiality as 
you reflect upon your own. (Why 
not?) That is to say, you must lay the 
fullest stress on his difficulties, disap- 
pointments and unhappinesses, and you 
must minimise his good fortune. You 
must magnify his efforts after right- 
eousness, and forget his failures. You 
must ever remember that, after all, he 
is not to blame for the faults of his 
character, which faults, in his case as in 
yours, are due partly to heredity and 
partly to environment. And beyond 
everything you must always give him 
credit for good intentions. Do not you, 

[77] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

though sometimes mistakenly, always 
act for the best? You know you do! 
And are you alone among mortals in 
rectitude? 

* :¥ * * 

This mental exercise in relation to 
another person takes time, and it in- 
volves a fatiguing effort. I repeat that 
it is not easy. Nor is it invariably 
agreeable. You may, indeed, find it 
tedious, for example, to picture in vivid 
detail all the worries that have brought 
about your wife's exacerbation — negli- 
gent maid, dishonest tradesman, milk 
in a thunder storm, hypercritical hus- 
band, dirt in the wrong place — but, 
when you have faithfully done so, I 
absolutely defy you to speak to her in 
the same tone as you used to employ, 
and to cherish resentment against her 
as you used to do. And I absolutely 

[78] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

defy you not to feel less discontented 
with yourself than in the past. It is 
impossible that the exercise of imagina- 
tion about a person should not result 
in goodwill towards that person. The 
exercise may put a strain upon you; 
but its effect is a scientific certainty. It 
is the supreme social exercise, for it is 
the giving of oneself in the most inti- 
mate and complete sense. It is the sus- 
pension of one's individuality in favour 
of another. It establishes a new atti- 
tude of mind, which, though it may 
well lead to specific social acts, is more 
valuable than any specific act, for it is 
ceaselessly translating itself into de- 
meanour. 

* * * * 

The critic with that terrible English 
trait, an exaggerated sense of the ridi- 
culous, will at this point probably re- 

[79] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

mark to himself, smiling: "I suppose 
the time will come, when by dint of reg- 
ular daily practice, I shall have 
achieved perfect goodwill towards the 
first object of my attentions. I can 
then regard that person as 'done.' I 
can put him on a shelf, and turn to the 
next; and, in the end, all my relations, 
friends and acquaintances will be 'done' 
and I can stare at them in a row on the 
shelf of my mind, with pride and satis- 
faction * * * ." Except that no per- 
son will ever be quite "done," human 
nature, still being human, in spite of 
the recent advances of civilisation, I do 
not deprecate this manner of stating 
the case. 

The ambitious and resolute man, 
with an exaggerated sense of the ridi- 
culous, would see nothing ridiculous in 
ticking off a number of different ob- 

[80] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

jects as they were successively achieved. 
If for example it was part of his scheme 
to learn various foreign languages, he 
would know that he could only succeed 
by regular application of the brain, by 
concentration of thought daily; he 
would also know that he could never 
acquire any foreign language in abso- 
lute perfection. Still, he would reach a 
certain stage in a language, and then he 
would put it aside and turn to the next 
one on his programme, and so on. As- 
suredly, he would not be ashamed of 
employing method to reach his end. 

Now all that can be said of the ac- 
quirement of foreign languages can be 
said of the acquirement of goodwill. 
In remedying the deficiences of the 
heart and character, as in remedying 
the deficiences of mere knowledge, the 
brain is the sole possible instrument, 

[81] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

and the best results will be obtained by 
using it regularly and scientifically, ac- 
cording to an arranged method. Why, 
therefore, if a man be proud of method 
in improving his knowledge, should he 
see something ridiculous in a deliberate 
plan for improving his heart — the af- 
fair of his heart being immensely more 
important, more urgent and more diffi- 
cult? The reader who has found even 
one good answer to the above question, 
need read no more of this book, for he 
will have confounded me and it. 



[82] 



CHAPTER 
EIGHT 

THE FEAST 
OF ST. FRIEND 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 



EIGHT 

THE FEAST OF ST. FRIEND 

THE consequences of the social self- 
discipline which I have outlined 
will be various. A fairly early result will 
be the gradual decline, and ultimately 
the death, of the superior person in one- 
self. It is true that the superior person 
in oneself has nine lives, and is capable 
of rising from the dead after even the 
most fatal blows. But, at worst, the 
superior person — (and who among us 
does not shelter that sinister inhabitant 
in his soul?) — will have a very poor 
time in the soul of him who steadily 
practises the imaginative understand- 
ing of other people. In the first place, 

[85] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

the mere exercise of the imagination on 
others absolutely scotches egotism as 
long as it lasts, and leaves it weakened 
afterwards. And, in the second and 
more important place, an improved 
comprehension of others (which means 
an intensified sympathy with them) 
must destroy the illusion, so wide- 
spread, that one's own case is unique. 
The amicable study of one's neigh- 
bours on the planet inevitably shows 
that the same troubles, the same forti- 
tudes, the same feats of intelligence, 
the same successes and failures, are 
constantly happening everywhere. One 
can, indeed, see oneself in nearly every- 
body else, and, in particular, one is 
struck by the fact that the quality in 
which one took most pride is simply 
spread abroad throughout humanity in 
heaps! It is only in sympathetically 
contemplating others that one can get 

[86] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

oneself in a true perspective. Yet 
probably the majority of human beings 
never do contemplate others, save with 
the abstracted gaze which proves that 
the gazer sees nothing but his own 
dream. 

:): :): * 4: 

Another result of the discipline is an 
immensely increased interest in one's 
friends. One regards them even with 
a sort of proprietary interest, for, by 
imagination, one has come into sym- 
pathetic possession of them. Further, 
one has for them that tender feeling 
which always follows the conferring of 
a benefit, especially the secret confer- 
ring of a benefit. It is the benefactor, 
not the person benefited, who is grate- 
ful. The benefit which one has con- 
ferred is, of course, the gift of oneself. 
The resulting emotion is independent 
of any sympathy rendered by the other ; 

[87 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

and where the sympathy is felt to be 
mutual, friendship acquires a new sig- 
nificance. The exercise of sympathetic 
imagination will cause one to look upon 
even a relative as a friend — a startling 
achievement! It will provide a new 
excitement and diversion in life. 

When the month of December 
dawns, there need be no sensation of 
weary apprehension about the diffi- 
culty of choosing a present that will 
suit a friend. Certainly it will not be 
necessary, from sheer indifference and 
ignorance, to invite the friend to choose 
his own present. On the contrary, one 
will be, in secret, so intimate with the 
friend's situation and wants and de- 
sires, that sundry rival schemes for 
pleasuring him will at once offer them- 
selves. And when he receives the pres- 
ent finally selected, he will have the 
conviction, always delightfidly flatter- 

[88] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

ing to a donee, that he has been the ob- 
ject of a particular attention and in- 
sight. * * * And when the cards of 
greeting are despatched, formal 
phrases will go forth charged, in the 
consciousness of the sender, with a gen- 
uine meaning, with the force of a cli- 
max, as though the sender had written 
thereon, in invisible ink: "I have had 
you well in mind during the last twelve 
months; I think I understand your 
difficulties and appreciate your efforts 
better than I did, and so it is with a 
peculiar sympathetic knowledge that I 
wish you good luck. I have guessed 
what particular kind of good luck you 
require, and I wish accordingly. My 
wish is not vague and perfunctory 
only." 

1* n* 1* •I* 

And on the day of festival itself one 
feels that one really has something to 

[89] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

celebrate. The occasion has a basis, if 
it had no basis for one before; and if a 
basis previously existed, then it is wid- 
ened and strengthened. The festival 
becomes a public culmination to a pri- 
vate enterprise. One is not reminded 
by Christmas of goodwill, because the 
enterprise of imaginative sympathy has 
been a daily affair throughout the year ; 
but Christmas provides an excuse for 
taking satisfaction in the success of the 
enterprise and new enthusiasm to cor- 
rect its failures. The symbolism of the 
situation of Christmas, at the turn of 
the year, develops an added impressive- 
ness, and all the Christmas customs, apt 
to produce annoyance in the breasts of 
the unsentimental, are accepted with in- 
dulgence, even with eagerness, because 
their symbolism also is shown in a 
clearer light. Christmas becomes as 

190] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

personal as a birthday. One eats and 
drinks to excess, not because it is the 
custom to eat and drink to excess, but 
from sheer effervescent faith in an idea. 
And as one sits with one's friends, pos- 
sessing them in the privacy of one's 
heart, permeated by a sense of the value 
of sympathetic comprehension in this 
formidable adventure of existence on a 
planet that rushes eternally through 
the night of space ; assured indeed that 
companionship and mutual understand- 
ing alone make the adventure agree- 
able, — one sees in a flash that Christ- 
mas, whatever else it may be, is and 
must be the Feast of St. Friend, and 
a day on that account supreme among 
the days of the year. 

The third and greatest consequence 
of the systematic cultivation of good- 

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THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

will now grows blindingly apparent. 
To state it earlier in all its crudity 
would have been ill-advised ; and I pur- 
posely refrained from doing so. It is 
the augmentation of one's own happi- 
ness. The increase of amity, the dim- 
inution of resentment and annoyance, 
the regular maintenance of an attitude 
mildly benevolent towards mankind, — • 
these things are the surest way to hap- 
piness. And it is because they are the 
surest way to happiness, that the most 
enlightened go after them. All real 
motives are selfish motives; were it 
otherwise humanity would be utterly 
different from what it is. A man may 
perform some act which will benefit 
another while working some striking 
injury to himself. But his reason for 
doing it is that he prefers the evil of 
the injury to the deeper evil of the 

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THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

fundamental dissatisfaction which 
would torment him if he did not per- 
form the act. Nobody yet sought the 
good of another save as a means to his 
own good. And it is in accordance 
with common sense that this should be 
so. There is, however, a lower egotism 
and a higher. It is the latter which we 
call unselfishness. And it is the latter of 
which Christmas is the celebration. We 
shall legitimately bear in mind, there- 
fore, that Christmas, in addition to be- 
ing the Feast of St. Friend, is even 
more profoundly the feast of one's own 
welfare. 



[93] 



CHAPTER 

NINE 

THE REACTION 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 



NINE 

THE REACTION 

A REACTION sets in between 
Christmas and the New Year. It 
is inevitable; and I should be writing 
basely if I did not devote to it a full 
chapter. In those few dark days of in- 
activity, between a fete and the resump- 
tion of the implacable daily round, when 
the weather is usually cynical, and we 
are paying in our tissues the fair price 
of excess, we see life and the world in a 
grey and sinister light, which we imag- 
ine to be the only true light. Take the 
case of the average successful man of 
thirty-five. What is he thinking as he 
lounges about on the day after Christ- 
mas? 

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THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

His thoughts probably run thus: 
"Even if I live to a good old age, which 
is improbable, as many years lie behind 
me as before me. I have lived half my 
life, and perhaps more than half my 
life. I have realised part of my world- 
ly ambition. I have made many good 
resolutions, and kept one or two of 
them in a more or less imperfect man- 
ner. I cannot, as a commonsense per- 
son, hope to keep a larger proportion 
of good resolutions in the future than I 
have kept in the past. I have tried to 
understand and sympathise with my 
fellow creatures, and though I have not 
entirely failed to do so, I have nearly 
failed. I am not happy and I am not 
content. And if, after all these years, 
I am neither happy nor content, what 
chance is there of my being happy and 

[98] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

content in the second half of my life? 
The realisation of part of my worldly 
ambition has not made me any happier, 
and, therefore, it is unlikely that the 
realisation of the whole of my ambition 
will make me any happier. My 
strength cannot improve; it can only 
weaken; and my health likewise. I in 
my turn am coming to believe — what 
as a youth I rejected with disdain — 
namely, that happiness is what one is 
not, and content is what one has not. 
Why, then, should I go on striving 
after the impossible? Why should I 
not let things slide?" 

Thus reflects the average successful 
man, and there is not one of us, success- 
ful or unsuccessful, ambitious or unam- 
bitious, whose reflections have not oft- 
en led him to a conclusion equally dis- 

[99] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

satisfied. Why should I or anybody 
pretend that this is not so? 

* * * H: 

And yet, in the very moment of his 
discouragement and of his blackest 
vision of things, that man knows quite 
well that he will go on striving. He 
knows that his instinct to strive will be 
stronger than his genuine conviction 
that the desired end cannot be achieved. 
Positive though he may be that a world- 
ly ambition realised will produce the 
same dissatisfaction as Dead Sea fruit 
in the mouth, he will still continue to 
struggle. * * * Now you cannot argue 
against facts, and this is a fact. It 
must be accepted. Conduct must be 
adjusted to it. The struggle being in- 
evitable, it must be carried through as 
well as it can be carried through. It 
will not end brilliantly, but precautions 

[100] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

can be taken against it ending disgrace- 
fully. These precautions consist in the 
devising of a plan of campaign, and 
the plan of campaign is defined by a 
series of resolutions: which resolutions 
are generally made at or immediately 
before the beginning of a New Year. 
Without these the struggle would be 
formless, confused, blind and even 
more futile than it is with them. Or- 
ganised effort is bound to be less inef- 
fective than unorganised effort. 
* * * * 

A worldly ambition can be, frequent- 
ly is, realised: but an ideal cannot be 
attained — if it could, it would not be 
an ideal. The virtue of an ideal is its 
unattainability. It seems, when it is 
first formed, just as attainable as a 
worldly ambition which indeed is often 
schemed as a means to it. After twen- 

[101] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

ty-foiir hours, the ideal is all but at- 
tained. After forty-eight, it is a little 
farther off. After a week, it has re- 
ceded still further. After a month it is 
far away; and towards the end of a 
year even the keen eye of hope has al- 
most lost sight of it; it is definitely 
withdrawn from the practical sphere. 
And then, such is the divine obstinacy 
of humanity, the turn of the year gives 
us an excuse for starting afresh, and 
forming a new ideal, and forgetting 
our shame in yet another organised ef- 
fort. Such is the annual circle of the 
ideal, the effort, the failure and the 
shame. A rather pitiful history it may 
appear! And yet it is also rather a 
splendid history! For the failure and 
the shame are due to the splendour of 
our ideal and to the audacity of our 
faith in ourselves. It is only in com- 

[102] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

parison with our ideal that we have 
fallen low. We are higher, in our fail- 
ure and our shame, than we should 
have been if we had not attempted to 
rise. 

* * * * 

There are those who will say: "At 
any rate, we might moderate somewhat 
the splendour of our ideal and the au- 
dacity of our self-conceit, so that there 
should be a less grotesque disparity be- 
tween the aim and the achievement. 
Surely such moderation would be more 
in accord with common sense! Surely 
it would lessen the spiritual fatigue and 
disappointment caused by sterile en- 
deavour!" It would. But just try to 
moderate the ideal and the self-conceit! 
And you will find, in spite of all your 
sad experiences, that you cannot. If 
there is the stuff of a man in you, you 

[103] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

simply cannot! The truth is that, in 
the supreme things, a man does not act 
under the rules of earthly common 
sense. He transcends them, because 
there is a quality in him which compels 
him to do so. Common sense may per- 
suade him to attempt to keep down the 
ideal, and self-conceit may pretend to 
agree. But all the time, self-conceit 
will be whispering: "I can go one bet- 
ter than that." And lo! the ideal is 
furtively raised again. 

A man really has little scientific con- 
trol over the height of his ideal and the 
intensity of his belief in himself. He 
is born with them, as he is born with a 
certain pulse and a certain reflex ac- 
tion. He can neglect the ideal, so that 
it almost dissolves, but he cannot 
change its height. He can maim his 
belief in himself by persistent abandon- 

[104] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

merit to folly, but he cannot lower its 
flame by an effort of the will, as he 
might lower the flame of a gas by a 
calculated turn of the hand. In the 
secret and inmost constitution of hu- 
manity it is ordained that the disparity 
between the aim and the achievement 
shall seem grotesque ; it is ordained that 
there shall be an enormous fuss about 
pretty nearly nothing; it is ordained 
that the mountain shall bring forth a 
mouse. But it is also ordained that men 
shall go blithely on just the same, ignor- 
ing in practice the ridiculousness which 
they admit in theory, and drawing re- 
newed hope and conceit from some 
magic, exhaustless source. And this is 
the whole philosophy of the New Year's 
resolution. 



[106] 



CHAPTER 
TEN 

ON THE LAST DAY 
OF THE YEAR 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 



TEN 

ON THE LAST DAY OF THE YEAR 

THERE are few people who arrive 
at a true understanding of life, 
even in the calm and disillusioned hours 
of reflection that come between the end 
of one annual period and the beginning 
of another. Nearly everybody has an 
idea at the back of his head that if only 
he could conquer certain difficulties and 
embarrassments, he might really start 
to live properly, in the full sense of 
living. And if he has pluck he says to 
himself: "I will smooth things out, 
and then I'll really live." In the same 
way, nearly everybody, regarding the 
spectacle of the world, sees therein a 

[109] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

principle which he calls Evil; and he 
thinks: "If only we could get rid of 
this Evil, if only we could set things 
right, how splendid the world would 
be!" Now, in the meaning usually at- 
tached to it, there is no such positive 
principle as Evil. Assuming that there 
is such a positive principle in a given 
phenomenon — such as the character of 
a particular man — you must then ad- 
mit that there is the same positive prin- 
ciple everywhere, for just as the char- 
acter of no man is so imperfect that 
you could not conceive a worse, so the 
character of no man is so perfect that 
you could not conceive a better. Do 
away with Evil from the world, and you 
would not merely abolish certain spe- 
cially distressing matters, you would 
change everything. You would in fact 
achieve perfection. And when we say 

[110] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

that one thing is evil and another good, 
all that we mean is that one thing is less 
advanced than another in the way of 
perfection. Evil cannot therefore be a 
positive principle; it signifies only the 
falling short of perfection. 

And supposing that the desires of 
mankind were suddenly fulfilled, and 
the world was rendered perfect! There 
would be no motive for effort, no alter- 
cation of conflicting motives in the hu- 
man heart ; nothing to do, no one to be- 
friend, no anxiety, no want unsatisfied. 
Equilibrium would be established. A 
cheerful world! You can see instantly 
how amusing it would be. It would 
have only one drawback — that of being 
dead. Its reason for being alive would 
have ceased to operate. Life means 
change through constant development. 
But you cannot develop the perfect. 
The perfect can merely expire. 
[Ill] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

That average successful man whom I 
have previously cited feels all this by 
instinct, though he does not compre- 
hend it by reason. He reaches his am- 
bition, and retires from the fight in or- 
der to enjoy life, — and what does he 
then do? He immediately creates for 
himself a new series of difficulties and 
embarrassments, either by undertaking 
the management of a large estate, or by 
some other device. If he does not main- 
tain for himself conditions which neces- 
sitate some kind of struggle, he quick- 
ly dies — spiritually or physically, often 
both. The proportion of men who, hav- 
ing established an equilibrium, proceed 
to die on the spot, is enormous. Con- 
tinual effort, which means, of course, 
continual disappointment, is the sine 
qua non — without it there is literally 
nothing vital. Its abolition is the abol- 

[112] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

ition of life. Hence, people, who, fail- 
ing to savour the struggle itself, antici- 
pate the end of the struggle as the be- 
ginning of joy and happiness — these 
people are simply missing life ; they are 
longing to exchange life for death. The 
hemlock would save them a lot of 
weary waiting. 

4: * Hi * 

We shall now perceive, I think, what 
is wrong with the assumptions of the 
average successful man as set forth in 
the previous chapter. In postulating 
that happiness is what one is not, he has 
got hold of a mischievous conception of 
happiness. Let him examine his con- 
ception of happiness, and he will find 
that it consists in the enjoyment of 
love and luxury, and in the freedom 
from enforced effort. He generally 
wants all three ingredients. Now pas- 

[113] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

sionate love does not mean happiness; 
it means excitement, apprehension and 
continually renewed desire. And af- 
fectionate love, from which the passion 
has faded, means something less than 
happiness, for, mingled with its gentle 
tranquility is a disturbing regret for 
the more fiery past. Luxury, accord- 
ing to the universal experience of those 
who have had it, has no connection 
whatever with happiness. And as for 
freedom from enforced effort, it means 
simply death. 

Happiness as it is dreamed of cannot 
possibly exist save for brief periods of 
self-deception which are followed by 
terrible periods of reaction. Real, 
practicable happiness is due primarily 
not to any kind of environment, but to 
an inward state of mind. Real happi- 
ness consists first in acceptance of the 

[114] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

fact that discontent is a condition of 
life, and, second, in an honest endeav- 
our to adjust conduct to an ideal. Real 
happiness is not an affair of the future ; 
it is an affair of the present. Such as 
it is, if it cannot be obtained now, it can 
never be obtained. Real happiness 
lives in patience, having comprehended 
that if very little is accomplished to- 
wards perfection, so a man's existence 
is a very little moment in the vast ex- 
panse of the universal life, and having 
also comprehended that it is the strug- 
gle which is vital, and that the end of 
the struggle is only another name for 
death. 

* * * * 

"Well," I hear you exclaiming, "if 
this is all we can look forward to, if this 
is all that real, practicable happiness 
amounts to, is life worth living?" That 

[ 115 ] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

is a question which each person has to 
answer for himself. If he answers it in 
the negative, no argument, no persua- 
sion, no sentimentalisation of the facts 
of life, will make him alter his opinion. 
Most people, however, answer it in the 
affirmative. Despite all the drawbacks, 
despite all the endless disappointments, 
they decide that life is worth living. 
There are two species of phenomena 
which bring them to this view. The 
first may be called the golden moments 
of life, which seem somehow in their 
transient brevity to atone for the dull 
exasperation of interminable mediocre 
hours: moments of triumph in the 
struggle, moments of fierce exultant re- 
solve; moments of joy in nature — mo- 
ments which defy oblivion in the mem- 
ory, and which, being priceless, cannot 
be too dearly bought. 

[IIG] 



THE FEAST OF ST FRIEND 

The second species of compensatory 
phenomena are all the agreeable ex- 
periences connected with human friend- 
ship ; the general feeling, under diverse 
forms, that one is not alone in the 
world. It is for the multiplication and 
intensification of these phenomena that 
Christmas, the Feast of St. Friend, ex- 
ists. And, on the last day of the year, 
on the eve of a renewed effort, our 
thoughts may profitably be centered 
upon a plan of campaign whose execu- 
tion shall result in a less imperfect in- 
tercourse. 



[117] 



NOV 4 1911 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



KCV 4 *9« 



